So this about seals the Ron Paul is a crazed X-Files character of a politician for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dECSYm5bSM&feature=player_embedded Oh, wait. There are probably people on this site who agree with this nonsense...
I tend to agree with him. Think about it, if the CIA has the skills and power to control foriegn governments, what could stop them from doing the same thing to their own government?
This is the kind of thing that kept me from supporting him in the primary (not that I got to have any say anyway, living in Indiana). Still, he is so right on economic issues, and we are so fucked in that area right now.
Oh, please. I think this thread will become a litmus test for who is a kook and who isn't. The CIA can't even run Langley and it's completely accountable to the whims of the president and Congress (see the news). And which foreign governments does it control? And what's your proof of that? When did Paul's coup happen? Who ran it? Are they still in power, because there is a new director at CIA? Think about the foolishness of what you're saying...
What are they for expect influencing foriegn governments? The same skills could be used to blackmail US politicians.
Why do so many of these guys who seem so great at first turn out to be kooks? Remember Ross Perot? He talked such common sense at first, then he went all wacko claiming Bush was going to kill his daughter or mess up her wedding. Then there was the debate where his VP candidate turned off his hearing aide in the middle of the debate!
Except, the POTUS appoints every senior position in the CIA, including its current direct, an Intelligence outsider with ZERO experience administering a federal bureaucracy. ~String
I don't know. You're the one making wild statements without a shred of supporting evidence. Has the CIA operated outside the law? Probably. But breaking a law, or even dozens is a far cry from controlling the entire federal government while preventing all proof of such activity from leaking out. That's a big secret to keep with outsiders being appointed to the helm, a powerful oversight and literally thousands of employees of all political ideologies. ~String
The CIA's job is to break laws in foreign countries, just as the 75 or so foreign intelligence organizations break American laws when they operate here. People typically don't give up secrets, and when they do, it's still espionage, which is illegal in just about every country. What the CIA is not supposed to do is break laws in the US, and we know about the occasions it has, and I doubt very seriously they could happen again today, even if the CIA wanted to practice political suicide and do so. It's even worse that lawbreaking. Paul is claiming there was a coup. Try keeping that secret. Every coup the CIA has ever even come close to has ended up in the press. But it orchestrated one at home and nobody knows about it? :bugeye: The CIA has officers. Agents is the term for the sources they run, so you are already showing your limited knowledge. Officers are typically trained in breaking and entering, pyschological manipulation, surviellance detection and avoidance and covert communication. Coups aren't typically on the agenda, and if you look at the CIA's history, you will see it's not very good at them (it succeeded on just two occassions).
I THINK Paul say's "We need to take ON the CIA" not Out. What do you guys think? Also, maybe he has a point? The CIA may be overstepping it's mandate. Anyone here think the CIA should be running military campaigns? I don't.
Until a few years have gone by, and we find - as we have every few years since the CIA was formed - that a few years ago they did some bad stuff. But the details are classified, and it's all over now, they aren't doing it any more, and it's somebody else's fault, and so forth. We know this is so, because we've heard it so often - it was so every other time, of course it is now repeatedly verified, yes? Until next time, then, be reassured that Blackwater's alliance with the CIA all over the planet, including in the prosecution of actual war, is of no significance to Americans here at home.
The bold is most likely what he's talking about. Training and employing foreign mercenaries are big no nos in Ron's head . That could play into it, also.
He alleges the CIA orchestrated a coup. There is no evidence for that -- anywhere. He also gets his facts wrong and talks about the CIA being established in WW2. It wasn't. And the CIA isn't "running" military campaigns. It has operatives in place with local forces. Beyond that, it's directing drone strikes. Do you have anything of substance to add or are you just going to ramble in vague and non-specific language? Back on topic, I defy someone to describe an incident where the CIA acted without executive or legislative authority. Paul's kooky conspiracy theory about a coup and the CIA running the govt. requires it act in ways beyond what the govt. tells it to do. Per my knowledge, that's never happened, either in the past or present. The CIA is not prosecuting the war, it's prosecuting a part of the war, just as it always has. CENTCOM is running the war. That's not what he is talking about. What he is talking about is what he is talking about. He alleges a coup and CIA control of the govt. Those are both fucking ridiculous assertions.
Every nation has an intelligence service, so why, pray tell, should the most powerful nation on Earth not have one? And do I take your endorsement to mean you concur with his nonsense?
I do think that we ought to have an intelligence branch for the purposes of defense, but that doesn't mean interfering with other nations and causing unnecessary wars. We ought to have a non-interventionist or isolationist foreign policy, as the Founding Fathers envisioned.
Well, think of it this way, were cleaning up messes and playing damage control for things that were done years ago, like training/funding Taliban, placement of Saddam, etc. Pretty sure CIA were in on both of those. For a strict constitutionalist the Military is getting owned. Side not: one video linked was a russian news outlet running a story about Xe (blackwater) being used for security at the POTUS campaigns in which not even the SS were informed. Probably BS but who knows, ..or cares
Any coup such as you allude to would of course involve the establishment of convenient executive authority. Paul is talking about something else. As far as legislative authority, the CIA has exceeded it routinely and customarily, from the abuses documented in the Church hearings to the rendition program and assassination operations and sordid "interrogation" theater of our recent awareness. So I listened to the thing, and Paul is saying something reasonable and obvious - he's not talking about a coup in the sense of taking over the government, but a coup in the sense of taking over operations far beyond its mandate and ostensible purpose, that are supposed to be handled by other agencies - in this case the military. The CIA has taken on major military responsibilities and roles in the Middle East, is Paul's observation. But the CIA is allowed to hide what it is doing, classify and conceal its operations even to the point of their existence, refuse to account for its doings or the means employed. So the stage is set for misfortune, as Paul observes. Nothing kooky about it. Simple description of well known events.
